


Innocence

by idrilhadhafang



Series: Star Wars Rewrites [9]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 30 Day Dark Fandom Challenge, Canon Rewrite, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Maz Kanata, Heavy Angst, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 17:29:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14117331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Maz Kanata grieves.





	Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. 
> 
> Author’s Notes: For the prompt “deathfic/grief”.

  
I feel Snoke’s death from across the galaxy, and I swear that I see images flashing across my field of vision. Images of the girl, holding Skywalker’s lightsaber, standing over him, images of Snoke, formerly Aldric of Milara, looking up at empty space and saying, “Ren…I’ve finally found it.”

  
Has he found _ren_ , I can’t help but wonder, or is it no more than a dying delusion? Most of his life he’s been searching for _ren_ , though to no avail. It was one of many reasons he left. To find _ren_ , to find the Milaran meaning of balance, true balance.

  
He’d complained to me that the Jedi teachings were all wrong. We were young, teenagers in human years, and I remember it all too well. “They’re twisted,” he said. “Uncaring, cold…”

  
I didn’t see it then, but I see it now. The Jedi are not what Snoke believed them to be, cold, uncaring monsters who squabbled over petty things. But they were imperfect. Why do you think I never returned to the Jedi Order?

  
And then there was going after Aldric. Yoda was more resigned about it, seeing it as something that had to be done. Capture Aldric, not kill him. The Jedi do not believe in execution. As Bastila Shan once said, no one deserves execution, no matter what their crimes.

  
And Aldric…Yoda and I cared for him. We truly did, more than he knew. Even watching him fall into the river, I could swear something changed in Yoda that day. He was silent on the way back home to the Jedi Temple, and since then, I swore something in him became harsher, colder.

  
He had the eyes of a wise man, yes, but also the eyes of one whose wound hadn’t fully healed.

  
Snoke? I wonder what I would have seen looking into those eyes. Would I have seen Aldric? An angry, broken little boy given the title of savior? I do not know.

  
It’s on Corellia, away from the others, that I give him a proper Milaran funeral. To honor their dead, Milarans memorialize possessions. Send them out to sea, for example. Corellia has rich ground, deep earth. I bury something that he gave me as a boy, a necklace from Milara, in the earth.

  
Snoke was a monster, but I want to remember the boy he was, not the monster. The man, even, who defeated Venkar. In the end, it is the best I can do.


End file.
